Nation's budget morass an embarrassment

There's an old trick in Washington, D.C., known as the Washington Monument Gambit. Whenever the specter of budget cuts is raised, officials announce that the popular landmark in the nation's capital will be closed, disappointing thousands of tourists, including children looking forward to an elevator ride to the viewing room at the top.

There was a time when the Washington Monument Gambit might have worked. Not anymore. By now, Americans have been warned of so many impending catastrophes that didn't come to pass that they become inured to the prospect of the possibility that, for once, the warnings just might come true - whether it's Y2K, the "fiscal cliff" or the equally scary "sequestration."

So, it should be no surprise that, even as President Barack Obama has traveled around the country warning of another disaster, most Americans yawned and went about their business.

There should be more than enough embarrassment to take care of just about every official, elected or appointed, in the nation's capital.

Sequestration - a cut in authorized spending for every federal government department, agency and program - was supposed to be a sort-of Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of Congress and the Obama administration, the equivalent of locking the entire bunch in a room and not letting them out until they agreed on a spending plan for the government. Instead it's turned into a game of chicken, with neither side willing to give an inch.

But they're asking a lot of the public. They're asking us, for instance, to think the federal government is such a finely tuned machine that any cuts will destroy the social safety net, if you're a Democrat, or open our military to quick defeat by the North Koreans or Iranians, if you're a Republican. They're asking us to think there are no programs buried in the bowels of the Interior Department, the Agriculture Department, Commerce, Education, Energy or Defense we can't live without.

Yes, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned that trying to balance the federal budget too quickly will send the U.S. economy into another tailspin. Retailers don't care whom their customers work for, after all, as long as they're spending money.

But this ongoing dysfunction in Washington isn't doing the economy any good either. It's just making us weary. If our political leaders can't find a way out of this morass, perhaps they should make room for someone who can.

- Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal

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Nation's budget morass an embarrassment

There's an old trick in Washington, D.C., known as the Washington Monument Gambit.